Item 01: Ralph Ingram Moore letters, 10 February 1907-15 March 1918 - Page 550
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[Page 550]
R.N. Hospital.
Portland. Dorset.
April 27, 1918.
Dearest Mother,
Have only just heard that the Admiralty has cabled out to you the account of my little adventure. I am sorry in one way as I know how cables upset you and for that very reason I did not wire you myself at the time. Mrs Knight wrote to you for me for my fingers have been giving me some trouble in the way of being rather stiff, however they are nearly O.K. now.
I'm sure you will want to hear the facts first hand so here goes. On March the 15th at 8 o'clock in the morning word came that a submarine was sighted on the route of a convoy coming from France. Ensign Stone (one of the American Airmen lent to the Naval Air Service) and myself were detailed for the job, it was rather a misty day with a rough sea, we picked up the convoy, and stood by it for some time then turned aside to examine the route, we were some ten to twelve miles from the convoy when our engine failed completely and down we came smack into the rough sea. We had been flying so low that I had not time to send out the usual wireless signal. The tail of the machine buckled up and the whole thing began to sink. I scribbled our position and released a pigeon with the message, we then had to scramble out on the floats as the machine turned over. I had very little hope of being saved then for the machine was already breaking up with the big seas, however in the end they proved our salvation, their continued action breaking away the floats from the rest of the machine. On these floats we spent a not very pleasant five days, without food or water and thoroughly wet. I won't dwell on those days but needless to say when we were picked up on the 19th at 6 p.m. by a trawler we were feeling rather dickey. They were kindness itself on the trawler, undressing us